By Evelyn Pyburn

It all comes down to the conclusion that “we know better.” We know better than the general run-of-the-mill taxpayer rube.

That attitude by public officials at every level of government is one with which we have all become far too familiar.  Such has been the attitude of many city officials over the years, as they pursued what they absolutely knew was illegal, and was an act hugely disrespectful of the citizens they were supposed to serve and represent.  And, most amazingly, which some still continue to hold as they drag out a costly legal battle over the illegal franchise fee, to absolutely no worthy end.

That the city lost the suit filed against them is totally just. It’s a shame more individuals couldn’t be held personally responsible for what they perpetrated upon the community.  Again, we see what happens when individuals are not held accountable for their actions and choices.

It is indeed a no-win situation that the taxpayers must pay, no matter the outcome of the case, so let’s make sure that there is at least a “win” in demonstrating what justice looks like and underscoring the honest role of government. Since it is going to “cost” no matter what, the court should make the city responsible to reimburse ratepayers as a statement of culpability of all those involved.

Perhaps they thought there was a great need for revenues for the city and believed that taxpayers would reject a mill levy. It is true that a majority of the public can be wrong, but sooner or later they get it right. True statesmen know that, accept it, and have respect for the process and the public.

It is not the role of leadership to find ways to sidestep the people and to attempt to dupe them. It is to try to lead them to what one believes is the right answers and to accept the electorate’s conclusion at the polls. 

The average citizen may indeed lag behind issues and may not be fully informed and unaware of political gamesmanship, but in the long run they have a better track record of understanding than do the dictates of the politicians and power seekers. It is often, in fact, that understanding that the elitists most abhor.

Given the opportunities the city had to lessen the harm to the taxpayers, which they rejected, and the fact that the farce continues still, demands loud and clear condemnation from the court. There were good people inside and outside of city government, from the very beginning, who said that this was an illegal tax. Over the years, the plaintiffs voiced many times their concerns, before being forced to file suit. And, even after filing suit, understanding the imposition to taxpayers, they offered to drop it for $20,000 and a statement from City officials to never do it again. Arrogance again prevailed, and city officials and their attorneys rejected that offer, as well as similar opportunities to minimize harm to taxpayers. And, so the case continues, today, mounting millions of dollars in greater attorney fees.

The court has already decreed that which the city would not affirm: that they won’t do it again, but for the court to require some degree of restitution will say loudly and clearly that which MUST be said, that this kind of government cannot be allowed to stand. It will say that city officials SERVE THE PEOPLE, and that even when administrators, bureaucrats and elected politicians believe they are smarter than the general public, they must still bow to the public. It’s called the democratic process.

This is a moment in time, that justice and the rule of law demands that those who believe themselves to be above the law to be totally castigated for their deceit and for their disdain of the citizens of Billings.

By Evelyn Pyburn

We have a government right now that is trying to destroy America’s ability to create new wealth. That best explains everything that is happening.

That shouldn’t be surprising, because that is the only way to destroy the US. It is after all, our amazing ability to produce, and having the freedom to do so, that has made our country strong since its founding, and that remains the source of our power and influence in the world today.

Many people do not know that it was very much because of our country’s ability to gear up production and the people’s willingness to work tirelessly in support of our troops that won WWII. At root of that miraculous response was the freedom that people and industry had to react quickly and creatively and fervently, to produce all the things needed by the military. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, there was almost nothing in the US with which to conduct a war except for our production capability.

Our greatest defense of freedom, far more so than armies and government, has always been the ambition and spirit of workers to work and businesses to innovate and produce. It is in our DNA. Whatever else you have to say about Americans, we have been the greatest wealth generators on earth, in all of history.

Great generation of wealth is what has backed up the American dollar far more so than gold and silver.

No matter what insane policies have been put in our path, they have always failed to be as devastating as predicted because most analysts almost always failed to fully appreciate, or even recognize, the staggering level of wealth that this country produces and is capable of producing. Not that progressive policies haven’t been harmful, but despite intent, they have failed to erode the basics of our economic foundation, because we, the people, have always generated more wealth than what adversaries have ever been able to destroy.

And they DO try to destroy it. It’s been coming at us from all directions. We hear about it in the news, we feel it, we see it, but can’t comprehend that that is really what they mean to do.

Their first target of destruction is the individual’s right to choose in regard to how we want to live our own lives. If government can force you, as an individual, to get vaccinated, is there anything they can’t force you to do? If you accept the authority of government to do that, then for progressives the battle is won.

And, they win forever, if they target children in their most formative years, with a profound lesson of acquiescence to authority, which is happening right now with mandates to wear masks in school.

Eliminating our right to own firearms is a most important part of undermining our liberty and the individual’s ability to be self-sufficient. It is not only a means of self-protection but for hunting for food and defending our property.

The next step to destabilize the individual’s ability to create wealth, is to devalue and erode the means of exchanging value for value. They must destroy the strength of the dollar by spending money that doesn’t exist, to the tune of trillions and trillions of dollars. Flooding the economy with money that is based on nothing more than the value of paper smeared with green ink, such is an absolute guarantee to inflate prices of everything we use for producing. It is a huge tax that goes largely unrecognized as such by most citizens.

It is worse than normal taxes because it impacts everything indiscriminately. At least income or property taxes are something you pay only if you have an asset which generates the tax. Inflation impacts the poorest of the poor. It also devastates and disrupts markets, but most importantly it hugely cripples the ability of Americans to produce.

Beyond that there are policies and laws that are striking at the very core of markets, from the shutting down of pipelines to pushing farmers off the land; from forcing businesses to close or to reduce capacity, to forcing them to shut out workers from job opportunities because they refuse to get vaccinated; from encouraging workers not to work with infusions of largess of federal unemployment or child care benefits, to curtailing business conferences or gatherings where information and ideas are shared; by making travel difficult and limiting citizen interaction, by disrupting supply lines, to crippling distribution systems; by increasing production costs by curtailing energy production which pushes up prices, whether it is oil and gas or putting energy plants out of commission; by instilling distrust and fear to go shopping because of violent demonstrators who murder innocents and burn businesses. 

Is there any aspect of our lives that hasn’t been assailed by unrelenting and disruptive mandates that are placing life in turmoil? Not even individual efforts to be prepared for any catastrophe, most especially an overbearing government, are being overlooked. Why else would media belittle and demean people who raise, prepare and store their own food by urging people to distrust “preppers” as “extremists.” How can you be an extremist for being prepared for barren grocery store shelves? Or contaminated water supplies? Or power failures?

The only answer that can be, is that if everyone was prepared for food shortages and were able to provide for themselves, they would be impervious to threats, less compliant and more capable of continuing to produce. They are considered “extremists” because they would not be part of the middling, compliant crowd.

One of the lessons that we should all have learned with the shut-downs of businesses and stay-at- home mandates that took workers away from jobs, is how important everyone is and how vital every job is in contributing to a strong vibrant market place. There is no job so menial or career so mundane as not to be significant to the well-being of a community and the success of our society. It is these activities — most often taken for granted as just everyday life — that is the foundation of our liberty, secures our safety and sustains our economy.

It is every citizen’s ability to contribute, to produce and to provide for ourselves and our families that shores up freedom by making the power mongers irrelevant to our lives.

If citizens can generate wealth – everything they need – what do they need government for? Seekers of power over others cannot allow us to be self-sufficient. They see that citizens must be subjugated to the state and be of a mind to believe they need government. We must be convinced that we  need the wielders of power, for them to retain power.

The greatest defense we can put before the enemies of freedom is a determination to continue to be productive and self-sustaining.

By Evelyn Pyburn

As we watch the crackdown coming once again with children being forced to wear masks and employees of retail stores being required to wear masks, and as we listen to the rising crescendo of media invoking alarm and fear, we should pause a moment and thank our state legislators and the governor for passing laws that prevent local governments from imposing restraints on individuals and coercing businesses into serving as pseudo law enforcement to bully the public into compliance with local mandates and ordinances.

Given the current rise in hysteria and masked faces, one has to believe that if it were not for these restraints on the power of government, we would all be once more wearing masks, standing yards apart, cancelling events, and businesses would be closed. Our economy would once again be circling the drain.

Those demanding the wearing of masks assume hallowed ground because they believe they are “trusting to science.” Maybe they are right about the science. To believe so is their choice, but that is just the point – EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE A CHOICE!  The issue IS NOT ABOUT MASKS or science – it is about individual freedom, by far a more sacred issue. And, there is nothing sanctified about using force – most especially the force of government — against your neighbor.

We can deal with a disease or almost any adversity so long as we have the freedom to do so. Winning and holding that freedom is no easy thing, and that is what Montana lawmakers understood.

While it is astounding that so many people can so little understand the concept of freedom, life in 2020 seemed to make clear that it was necessary for the state legislature to redundantly pass laws to reinforce the Constitution, and fortunately last year Montana had representatives who had the fortitude to do so.

While it is heartbreaking to see the spirits of little children being broken by being forced to wear masks, it is quite terrifying to think that the coercion against businesses could destroy our economy.

Leaving people free to live their lives as they see fit is necessary to sustain our economy, which is every bit as important as protecting our health. The very essence of “economy” is people living their lives. How could that not be important?

While we are made well aware of the risk to life because of COVID, there seems little thought given to risks to life because of disruptions to the market place.

Part of the reason that people may be indifferent to the economic catastrophe is that we hear so little about impacts on business compared to the persistent and frenzied reports on every nuance of COVID. If someone sneezes while getting a COVID vaccination it makes headlines, but people losing their businesses, homes and life-savings passes little remarked upon.

There certainly is no official tracking of every nuance of the plight of business owners, as there is for the minutia of changes regarding COVID. For business owners it has been a lonely and desperate experience watching years of work and dreams evaporate. Sleepless nights and the anxiety of meeting the next payroll or just covering living expenses. The past year has been a nightmare for them. Not only were they forced to operate at reduced capacity, often an impossibility, and to change how they did business, including turning away customers, but in dealing with employees who were given greater incentives not to work than to work. They were threatened and bullied by bureaucrats who abused their power to intimidate business owners. With no other legal means to enforce local mandates, bureaucrats twisted the arms of business owners with threats of removing licenses or maliciously enacting other measures against them. This too our legislators stopped.

The impact on local economies was undoubtedly different from community to community. The degree to which people lost jobs and incomes depended largely upon how much a community’s economic base was dependent upon government employment. Government employees did not lose jobs (perhaps not a one, since data shows that government employment actually increased during 2020). So, counties with government employment making up a large part of their economic base (university employment or being the seat of state government) did not see their employment drop to the same degree as those counties more dependent on private sector businesses. So maybe that is why some communities push back harder than others.

Again, little data has been complied about the impacts of unemployment and closed shops. We don’t even really know how many Montana businesses have folded or failed to start (an economic factor every bit as important to our future). It’s likely though— if Montana follows the pattern of some states – it’s likely that one-third of our businesses failed over the past year.

How one deals with threats, risks and adversity, whether it is to your health or livelihood, is a matter of individual choice and we all need the freedom to make those choices and to find answers without engaging the use of force against others – against our neighbors. That is not only how one lives in a free society, but it creates the kind of society in which we want to live – it is for this that we should thank our political leadership.

By Evelyn Pyburn

With the fiasco of Afghanistan laid bare for the world to see, there has been a lot of public discussion and editorials and talking heads debating the worth of the US being engaged in “nation building.” One point that was made is that it seems not to work unless the grassroots citizens of a nation are willing to fight for their own freedom – only then will they value it enough to live it and insist upon retaining it.

 I agree that a people have to want freedom enough to fight for it, and they will have to fight for it always, because there are many who want to take it away.

We can see that in our own midst, where young people no longer value the freedom they have, which others fought and gained.  In a way that is understandable. Just because you want freedom doesn’t mean you automatically know what it takes to have freedom. Look again at our own citizenry – how many really know that the most important tenants that generate a free society are: the rule of law not whims of fleeting dictators, the right for individuals to own property, and a system that enforces private contractual agreements?

Even those who most avidly defend freedom may not understand what it is about the Constitution that makes it work, or how vital free markets and property rights are for individuals to have the means to be free.

The best way for the US to nation build – in the sense of encouraging freedom for other nations – is to hold and sustain freedom here. Our freedom is the biggest threat to tyranny around the world. That was the message of the “shot heard ‘round the world.” That is why tyrannical forces attack the US so deliberately and viciously, they understand what we seem not to understand: As long as we exist as a free country we demonstrate to people everywhere what is possible. No matter what else tyrants do to enslave their people, if their people see the vision of what is possible, they will not accept tyranny.

So from day-one, the world’s tyrants clearly understood, the US must be destroyed.

It is no accident that the US became an economic power house so quickly. It happened because of the freedom of individual citizens to produce, create, and innovate. The fact is, almost any country in the world, no matter how small, could become a dynamo power house simply by adopting freedom – but then the tyrants who now exercise control would not be tolerated.  So while the tyrants may want the kind of power and influence that the US holds, they are not willing to relinquish their political power and position to allow their own people the necessary freedom. Their personal avarice far exceeds any concerns for the wellbeing of commoners, so brute force must be the foundation of their government. We, too, have plenty of those types in the US, as do all “modern, sophisticated” countries. Such is the crux of all world struggles.

 We can do the most to advance the wellbeing of people of other nations by standing firmly for freedom here – by insisting the Constitution prevail, by fighting for the election of like-minded representatives in government, especially in local government. It should be the role of every citizen to understand what makes freedom work, which includes understanding what makes the Constitution such a brilliant structure and why it is that free markets are so powerful for the individual consumer/ citizen – and to be able to pass that knowledge on to the next generation, and not trusting to others or schools to teach it.

In fact, take the next generation out of government schools, and support and work towards a vibrant free market education system—one that is responsive to consumers and just as affordable as any other free market product. It is the teaching of ideas that is powerful. Once understood, the ideas of freedom  stand invincible. They are so powerful that those without ideas or haven’t better ideas, find it necessary to silence their adversaries by any and all means possible.

Our nation was built on an idea, if we fail to understand and sustain that idea, we will fail as a nation, no matter our armies.

By Evelyn Pyburn

The real issue about global warming is the conclusion that government has all the answers. Even if it is true (and it could be, it has been in the earth’s past), before we relinquish power over to government we should ask why. Why should we let government dictate how to deal with a catastrophe – any catastrophe.

How often is it that government has the right answers?

For an easier answer to that question, we could just look at recent headlines where, on one hand, Pres. Biden shuts down the XL Pipeline while giving Russia a nod of approval to move ahead with theirs. 

Why should a single American have to wear a single sweater because of having turned the thermostat down to curb CO2 emissions, when we have a president who so betrays his own citizens? And, what could better demonstrate that politics will always be at play, far more so than any real concerns about climate?

No one should be called on to sacrifice a single thing because of global warming, real or not. But of greater concern then that, is if we do face great peril because the planet warms (or cools) to some great extent, we would certainly be doomed if it were up to government to save us.

The best course of action is to trust to ourselves. Trust to the free market system, to the ingenuity of people and the unanticipated innovations that will surely come if this is truly a problem. Markets and freedom have worked and are continuing to work now.

Look at history. Look at what is happening right now.

Even without concerns of global warming and the threats of government, Americans have been annually reducing, on a per capita basis, our energy usage for over a century. Think about it. Whenever some aspect of business or the market makes a technological improvement or advancement that is what it is fundamentally all about. Every innovation and cost savings is about reducing the use of energy!!! And, the entire history of the US has been one of innovating, reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. Even when we weren’t thinking about it in those terms, we were doing it because it is what makes sense. It is what we do.

NO OTHER COUNTRY has curtailed their carbon emissions more than the US despite all the hysteria about the end of the world. It happens not because of the threats of the Progressives but because it is what a free people do because it makes ECONOMIC sense every bit as much as esthetic or spiritual sense.

Anyone truly concerned about global warming should be urging every country in the world to adopt freedom and free markets so that all countries can participate and be part of the solution. Government bureaucrats and politicians – neither ours nor theirs—will save us.

In fact, no matter what the universe throws at us, we will be able to deal with it better if we the people are free to deal with it. Can you truly envision President Biden saving the planet?

By Evelyn Pyburn

I must admit that I marvel at the emergence of garage sales in our society. They are a blend of a unique social and culture experience, an economical means of saving and bartering, a manifestation of recycling, a form of entertainment and learning, and they developed as a spontaneous system which has no written rules, but which everyone understands. Garage sales are a marvelous invention which no one invented. They are an amazing improvisation of people imbued with an understanding of the market place and who believe in creating their own opportunities. They are a marvelous American manifestation.

The hours to expect to see garage sales has commonly become accepted as Friday and Saturday. Seldom are Garage Sales evident on any other days. That is just the way it is and everyone just knows it.

Bartering is usually expected and accepted as part of the process. Just as cash is the preferred means of exchange, although some rare individuals will accept checks. All that just is, because it is what makes the most sense.

While garage sales – sometimes referred to as yard sales – are most often an eclectic array of used –and sometimes very used goods, such as antiques — household goods, tools, clothes, books and sports equipment or other domestic items – one is not surprised to sometimes find new goods, as well as sales of arts and crafts, baked goods, plants or the products of someone’s hobby.

Going to Garage Sales in the neighborhood is a great way to spend a relaxing morning, or to find adventure in an afternoon. To find just the perfect thing you need at an incredible bargain, is better than winning the lottery. Or to find something you never knew you needed but which adds a new measure of joy in your life, makes for great fun.

Now having said all that, I have to ask why so many Garage Sale producers do not know they have to make the address on the signs they post BIG. Really big! Even the professional signs which are sold to Garage Salers seem not to get the fact that the address has to be big enough to be easily read from across the street traveling at 25 mph. The manufactured signs usually have the words “Garage Sale” plenty big enough to read but the space left to write the address limits the size to such that one has to get out of the vehicle and get within a couple feet of it to read it, or to travel with binoculars as part of the required equipment to go Garage Saling.

The fact of the matter is the words “Garage Sale” are unnecessary. All one needs is the address. Part of the amazing thing about Garage Sales is that just seeing a sign taped to a street post with just an address says all that needs to be said. For some amazing reason everyone knows it is directions to a Garage Sale. In fact just an occasional arrow pointing the way is often enough.

The last point, that a few people – very few  — need to be told is to take down your signs when done – for a number of reasons – the most important of course is the courtesy of not allowing it to become litter in the neighborhood. But also one needs to make room for the next Garage Sale to put up signs and to avoid confusion. Another reason which underscores the most amazing thing about Garage Sales, is that if everyone failed to take down old signs the first thing you know city officials would find an excuse to regulate the whole process or worse to outlaw Garage Sales – something they would be inclined to do simply because so many people enjoy them.

Think about that. What can you do within city limits that doesn’t have some kind of regulations imposed on it. Garage Saling is one if not the only thing that has escaped the attention of those who want to govern everyone’s life. That in itself is absolutely astounding!

According to the Tax Foundation: The combined state and federal capital gains tax rate in California would rise from the current 37.1 percent to 56.7 percent under President Biden’s American Families Plan. Nationwide, the combined average capital gains tax rate would amount to an estimated 48.4 percent under the president’s proposal, with the top federal tax rate increasing to 43.4 percent. That compares to the current combined average rate of about 29 percent.